Vol. 5. No. 1 — April 2001
Interview with an Online Instructor (Part 6)
Jim Duber
duber dot com
<jim@duber.com>
Jim Duber: I understand that you’ve recently completed a teacher
training course over the Internet. What can you tell us about it?
Fatimah Abdallah: The course I participated in was Authentic
Materials in the English Language Classroom and the instructor was
Margaret Sokolik.
The course focused on using many different types of Authentic
Material as supplementary or regular course material. Some of these
included using Time/Newsweek Magazines, English Language Newspapers,
Real Audio and other listening materials.
JD: What were the main issues confronted in completing the course assignments?
FA: Some of the assignments, as they were given, did not apply to the
teaching/learning conditions here in Egypt. However, that was easily
resolved by adapting the assignments to the environment here. Also,
some of the materials to be used are not easily obtained here in
hard-copy form and internet availablility in Egyptian Educational
Institutes, especially private institutes, is almost non-existent.
Again, adaptation of the materials and how they were to be used was
the answer to this problem.
JD: How does participation in an online course compare to that of a
traditional face-to-face course?
FA: Participating in an online course is much more convenient than
attending a traditional course. Participants can log on to the
internet at their own convenience… Except for the chat periods
which were arranged to be convenient to all participants, join in
discussions on each topic of study, and learn from every participant
not just the instructor.
For me especially it was more convenient as I am in Egypt and the
course was given from UC Berkeley in the States… It would have been
impossible for me to take this course if I had to actually attend.
JD: What do you consider the advantages and disadvantages of this
online format?
FA: I did not find any disadvantage really…It was difficult
sometimes to get my assisgnments to the instructor because of
Internet connections. However, we worked it out in the end.
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